Inventing the Israelite

Jewish Fiction in Nineteenth-Century France

Maurice Samuels

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780804763844
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780804773423
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Jewish Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In this book, Maurice Samuels brings to light little known works of literature produced from 1830 to 1870 by the first generation of Jews born as French citizens. These writers, Samuels asserts, used fiction as a laboratory to experiment with new forms of Jewish identity relevant to the modern world. In their stories and novels, they responded to the stereotypical depictions of Jews in French culture while creatively adapting the forms and genres of the French literary tradition. They also offered innovative solutions to the central dilemmas of Jewish modernity in the French context—including how to reconcile their identities as Jews with the universalizing demands of the French revolutionary tradition. While their solutions ranged from complete assimilation to a modern brand of orthodoxy, these writers collectively illustrate the creativity of a community in the face of unprecedented upheaval.

Table of contents

• STANFORD STUDIES IN JEWISH HISTORY AND CULTURE
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Out of the Archive
• One - Romantic Exoticism: Eugénie Foa and the Dilemmas of Assimilation
• Two - Between Realism and Idealism: Ben-Lévi and the Reformist Impulse
• Three - A Conservative Renegade: Ben Baruch and Neo-Orthodoxy
• Four - Village Tales: Alexandre Weill and Mosaic Monotheism
• Five - Ghetto Fiction: Daniel Stauben, David Schornstein, and the Uses of the Jewish Past
• Conclusion: Proust’s Progenitors
• Notes
• Index